The invention relates to a magazine for tools and/or workpieces with a removing device.
By use of such magazines, tools or workpieces are kept ready for placement in automatically loaded machine tools. Such tool or workpiece magazines can be employed advantageously in electrical-discharge machine tools, in which a large number of cutting electrodes frequently must be employed successively.
The present invention is an improvement over a known magazine with a removal device, as is described, for example, in EP 0 132 599 Al. In this tool magazine, a plurality of disk-shaped tool carriers for holding the tools or workpieces are mounted on one shaft, having carriers for tools suspended at the periphery. For removal or deposition of a tool or workpiece, this magazine must be turned to a suitable position, whereupon the tool or workpiece is removed or deposited by a removing device. The removing device comprises a turnable vertical post, on which there is axially slidably mounted a carriage, which in turn carries a pivotably mounted transport arm with a gripping device.
Such a magazine undoubtedly has a very great capacity. On the other hand, the manipulation of a magazine portion that is loaded with a large number of tools or workpieces and that must be turned in order to remove or deposit a tool or workpiece is not without problems, because of the considerable weight. Moreover, the removing device, which includes an L-shaped pivotably mounted transport arm, is complex in terms of structure and control.
The object of the present invention is therefore to provide a magazine and a removing device which enable short access times to be achieved in combination with large magazine capacity, and wherein both the magazine and the removing device with their programmable controller have the simplest possible construction.